Influence of innovative products on users' emotion : a multi-componential approach ; L’influence de produits innovants sur l’émotion des utilisateurs : une approche multi-componentielle

Given the sizable economic investment of innovative products’ development, anticipating their success has become essential for companies. Therefore, a descriptive framework centered on user experience – also called UX – highlights individuals’ emotions as a criterion to predict the future use of products. Nevertheless, despite the pros of the models derived from this framework, they also have limits regarding the predictions they allow to make. Meanwhile, other psychological models aim to identify predictors of individuals’ behavioral intention to use these products for the first time or to use them again. These models – such as the Technology Acceptance Model, the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technologies or the Consumer Acceptance of Technology – enable to foresee individuals’ attitudes towards product characteristics and their intention to use them. However, they are also problematic regarding their way to take users’ emotions into account.To address the problem of the study of emotions triggered by products, we propose to adapt the Component Process Model. In this model emotions are the result of internal and external changes that can be categorized into five components: the cognitive component, the motivational component, the subjective component, the expressive component and the physiological component. We suggest using this model to specifically study the influence of a product’s innovational impact on emotions. Thus, in Studies 1 and 2 we show; firstly that it is possible to analyze the emotion elicited by products before their uses from three of the five components and secondly, that these emotions are not influenced by individuals’ personality and context. Then, in Studies 3 and 4, we experimentally test these components by comparing the emotions triggered by the first uses of so-called “innovative” products compared to the uses of products known as being “traditional”. The results of these studies confirm the advantage of using the Component Process Model to analyze emotions triggered by ...